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With the Christmas break almost upon us and 2018 coming to an end, it’s a good time to reflect on the last 12 months and the developments relating to criminal records. Once again it’s been an incredibly busy year for Unlock, with lots of positive news and progress to report in terms of the charity

The problem of spent convictions appearing online is a real and significant problem for many people. Two individuals with spent convictions brought claims against Google for refusing to de-list search engine results that contained details of their now spent convictions. The cases, the first in the UK on the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’, had

We are delighted to publish the Unlock Annual Report 2017/2018. We have achieved outstanding success at both service delivery and policy levels, reflecting the hard work and dedication of the Unlock team. The report reflects how we have helped people with convictions by: Providing direct support to individuals

A criminal record can be a real obstacle in getting on in life. But what we don’t know is if people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups face additional barriers that white people don’t. Unlock is an independent charity for people with criminal records. We’re collecting evidence that will help us to better

Unlock has today published new research that shows the vast majority of national companies continuing to have criminal record declarations as a core part of their initial job application forms. Marking the 5-year anniversary of the Ban the Box campaign, the findings reveal the extent to which national employers have failed to recognise the negative

Today we’ve published our autumn 2018 newsletter. The newsletter provides an update of the news at Unlock in the last three months. It’s sent to everyone who’s on our public mailing list, and we hope it’s a useful way of keeping up to date with what we’ve been up to. Read: Autumn 2018 Newsletter Previous newsletters

Today we have published new guidance to support employers to ensure that their policies and practices on collecting criminal records data during recruitment is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. The guidance makes it clear that collecting criminal records at the initial application stage is unlikely to be

The current criminal record disclosure rules are unnecessarily harsh and disproportionate – they mean that standard and enhanced DBS checks continue to disclose old, minor and irrelevant offences that often happened decades ago. This means people can feel like they are effectively serving a life sentence for minor offences that they committed in their youth.

Commenting on the launch today by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) of guidance and resources for recruitment agencies, Christopher Stacey, co-director of Unlock, the national charity for people with convictions, said: “Recruitment agencies are an important source of job opportunities for people with a criminal record. That’s why Unlock was pleased to work with

Unlock, an independent charity for people with convictions, has launched a new pilot project, funded by the UPP Foundation, the registered charity founded by University Partnerships Programme (UPP). The project, Unlocking students with conviction, will see Unlock working with three UK universities – Cardiff University, Goldsmiths and the University of Southampton – supporting them to

Today we have submitted our written response to the government’s call for evidence on the employment for people with convictions. Download our submission here. You can find out more about the call for evidence in our recent post to encourage others to get involved. Our submission draws on work that we’ve been doing as part

People Management has published an article that looks at a briefing recently published by Nacro that looks at data protection and the use of criminal offence data for employment and education purposes. We very much welcome the briefing by Nacro, which raises some important issues for employers. Speaking to People Management, Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock,